Words of Wisdom from a Soon to be Licensed Driver
by luvtheheaven
Summary: Alternate ending for the series. A one-shot of Ryan taking Lux for her driver's test. Pro-Cate/Ryan. My first fic venturing into this fandom. PLEASE review! ;) A sweet little Lux/Ryan story that hopefully you all can enjoy.


**Author's Note:** _So this is my first __Life Unexpected_ _f__ic. My first non-Gilmore Girls fic actually. I am writing this fic and then hopefully a Baze/Lux one soon afterward to explain why I'm pro-Ryan/Cate and Baze/Emma and never really was a Baze/Cate shipper. :D Not that I hated Baze/Cate or anything... but... well just read lol. XD Lux, Baze, and Ryan are my favorite characters on the show. Sorry I'm probably going to fail at being in-character. I hope someone enjoys this. Special thanks go to __Writteninthestars08__ for helping me out a lot with this, being my beta and really my friend and inspiration to do this in the first place. XD Her passion for this show has helped me to continue to love it too. She didn't find any typos or grammatical things to fix though, so if you read it and do find something, feel free to let me know and I'll update this fic to fix the problem accordingly!_

_This takes place during the series finale, 2x13, right after Ryan & Cate have their tearful talk and hug, after Baze tells his father he's buying the bar, after Cate and Lux have their heart-to-heart and Cate says that if she can only have 1 kid for the rest of her life she still would choose Lux to be that kid, and she wants to know about her relationship with Eric. Ryan and Cate are on the radio together again, happily. :D That's all the stuff that the show did right in my opinion. After that... no that was awful lol. In my opinion at least. The stuff with Julia never happened. She was never pregnant. I'm changing the storyline to be how I think the show should have ended. _

**Words of Wisdom from a Soon-to-be-Licensed Driver**

Cate is at the doctors, finding out all the details on why exactly she can't get pregnant again, and Lux is getting ready to go to her driver's test with Ryan. She climbs into the driver's side of the car, for one last chance to practice with someone who won't mark her down for doing even the slightest thing wrong. She looks over at Ryan in the passenger's seat and he seems so sad. He smiles weakly at Lux, trying to snap out of his mood once he sees her there.

"You ready to ace this thing?" he asks her playfully.

"I hope," she replies, looking at him curiously. She puts the key in the ignition. Keeping her foot on the break, the car still in park, she looks at him. "I'm really sorry you and Cate lost the baby," she says sincerely.

He smiles again and nods. He looks away, not really wanting to make eye-contact with her right now. "Thanks. I am too."

She starts to drive towards the DMV in downtown Portland. They're driving in awkward silence. Finally Lux decides to speak, once she's on an easy and clear stretch of road.

"You know, for what it's worth, you could always adopt a baby. Or... well... foster an older child. I would have loved to have been taken in by a couple like you and Cate. I dreamed about it every day for most of my life, you know. You two are so much better than the foster parents who only do it because they're struggling for money, not because they actually planned on being parents... and I'm not saying you have to do that, you could just adopt a baby instead, but it's just... it's not the end of the world. It's not like you and Cate can't have a baby. You can. You really can."

Lux stared determinedly ahead at the road, focusing on driving now, giving Ryan time to formulate a response. He bit his lip and then looked at her, really thinking about what she just said.

"I'm so sorry Lux. I'm so sorry for being so selfish about this. It's just," he looked at her, feeling so bad for all that she had to go through because no one adopted her until she was sixteen-years-old. "It's more than just this... this probably biological and therefore irrational want to have my genes passed down... it's just that Cate and I have been on such rocky ground, and she didn't really want a baby. This pregnancy was the only reason we got back together after we separated. It was the only thing holding us together. I know she says sleeping with Baze was a mistake, and that she doesn't have feelings for him anymore, but I still suspect that she does. And why wouldn't she? He's actually a really amazing guy, as I've been finding out lately, living with him and watching him with you and all that..." Ryan trailed off.

Lux shook her head. "She loves you. She really does. And she really wanted that baby. She's so upset that she lost it, can't you tell? She wanted to have a baby with you. She wanted to marry you. She... I think love is confusing. I think if I had a crush on some guy, and he got me pregnant in what sounded like a one-night stand, and I had the baby and he didn't even care enough to realize that I hadn't... hadn't had an _abortion_-"

"Lux!" Ryan interrupted, horrified at what was coming out of her mouth.

"No it's fine, it's just the fact," Lux continued, barely phased. "Baze assumed she had 'taken care of it' and well if I were Cate I'd have so much resentment bottled up for him too. But then she finds him again and he's sweet and... he's sorry... and it's confusing. And Baze falling in love with her... I think that was real. And it's very confusing for a guy to love you and you not love him back, not in the same way. Especially if you do care about him, and he'll always be a part of your history, the story of who you are, even a good friend. I kinda feel that way about Bug. And Baze... he'll always be in her life because he'll always be in _my_ life. And so all that is so... complicated. Ya know?" She glanced at him earnestly, hoping he'd believe her, understand her, accept what she was saying. She knew it in her heart to be true. "You know, Cate loves you now. She really truly does." Lux paused, changing lanes and focusing on her driving for a minute. "And Baze has moved on too. You should have seen how heartbroken he was about Emma this morning when he dropped me off for school. You don't feel that strongly betrayed and hurt if you don't love them with your whole heart," Lux finished, turning into the DMV parking lot.

"Wow," Ryan was just dumbfounded. "When did you get to be so wise?" he asked with a little grin.

"I don't know," she replied, smiling back. "By the way, I know a part of you has felt like you're not really my parent," she said, pulling into a space in the parking lot. She was a little crooked, but not so crooked that it wouldn't pass a test. "I have Baze as my dad and Cate as my mom and you're... I know how you must feel. But you've been just as much a parent to me as both of them. Really. I truly feel like I have three equal parents now and you're one of them. I've known all three of you for the same amount of time. You really should consider yourself my dad, because I do."

Ryan was tearing up a bit, he was so touched. He took a second to maintain his composure and then gently put his hand over hers to stop her from finishing moving the gear shift into 'park'.

"Well in that case," Ryan said, "let me be a good father and let you practice parallel parking one last time before the test. There's a nice curb right over there," he said, pointing, "and I know that's the trickiest part of the test."

"Oh good idea," Lux answered. She really was grateful to have him in her life. And she really did need the extra practice parallel parking. They exchanged a meaningful glance before Lux pulled back out of the space and drove to the curb.


End file.
